To the editor:

At the University of Kansas, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a subject of conversation, as students weigh which careers will still exist when we graduate and professors rethink how they teach and evaluate our work. None of us can predict how different the economy will look by the time my generation enters it, and that uncertainty has made AI a subject we carry well beyond the classroom.

That conversation has turned to evaluating the physical infrastructure needed to support the technology. Data centers house the computing power AI depends on, and a growing movement has called for moratoriums. I understand the concerns behind that movement, but I still believe Kansas should remain open to data centers.

Kansas has a long record of producing what the rest of the country needs, from the wheat grown across the western half of the state to the aircraft manufactured in Wichita, and the people behind that work have always understood their contribution to be part of something larger. Digital infrastructure can be the next chapter in that record.

None of this requires Topeka to decide that every community needs a data center. Local residents and officials understand their land and infrastructure better than anyone hundreds of miles away, and Kansas can remain open for business while each individual community decides whether a project fits.

AI innovation will occur with or without us — the only question is whether Kansas decides to profit from it or watch it cross state lines.

Michael T. Redlich,

Lawrence